A distributed system may include many interconnected hardware and software resources. Due to the vast number of resources in a distributed system, some distributed systems are very complex and difficult to understand. In large distributed systems, some resources may affect the operation of other resources. As the size of a distributed system increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to ascertain the effect of a particular resource on other resources in the distributed system. There is a need for a modeling system that models a distributed system and promotes or facilitates understanding the interactions between resources in the distributed system.